Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20160111

Mr. President likes to point to, and the way we treat iran is this. Yes we cut arms control agreements with the soviet union but at the same time we pushed back against their bad behavior everywhere in the world. Rose we conclude this evening with the highly regarded columnist for the Washington Post, David Ignatius. The idea we should write a blank check for oddy insecurity and they sometimes flail out against their enemies. Its a mistake, its gotten us in trouble for a generation. I dont think we should repeat that mistake again. Rose morell and ill ignatius when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Snrievment nine months the country will elect the 45th president of the United States. National security is dominating the campaign in a way we have seldom seen. The focus is as a result of the many challenges bound to face president obamas successor. Joining me is mike morell hes the cbs News National security correspondent. Hes served as cia deputy and acting director. Over the years he breached several president ial and Vice President ial candidates as well as two president elects. Hes written a fascinating new book called the great war of our time the fight against terrorism from alqaeda to isis. Im pleased to have him back at this table. Welcome. Thank you charlie, always good to be here. Rose let me just talk about january 2017. From what we know now, and this will relate to the campaign under way in terms of the debate going on in the country or the debate that should be going on in the country. What does the new president face . I think, charlie, that on day one, the president faces two very significant but very different challenges. The first is what do you do about the middle east. And the second is, what do you do about china. And then there are two sort of second tier challenges. One of those, what do you do about russia and Vladimir Putin and the other is what do you do about north korea. Take the middle east first. We tend to focus on isis, syria, iraq, libya. I think its very important and i think its important for the president ial candidates and for the new president to actually step back and look at the bigger dynamics going on in the region that are actually creating the problems that we see every day on the ground. And those dynamics, if i could just walk through them very quickly for you. Those dynamics are three. Not in any particular order. The first dynamic is the failure in several states of governance, the failure of governments to create a higher standard of living. The failure of governments to create hope for parents that their kids are going to have a better life than them. That failure over a very long period of time, thats what created the arab spring. Those political movements in tunisia and egypt and yemen and syria they have caused so many problems in the region. Rose led to despair among the young. Absolutely. Rose who become the soldiers. And drive them in a particular direction or another, correct. The second big dynamic is this cold war, this struggle between iran and saudi arabia. It is, some people talk about it as a struggle for influence in the region between the two. I see it a little bit differently. I see it as a push by iran for, to be the hegemonic power in the middle east, to call the shots, to have all the influence. And saudi arabia pushing back against that. Thats the second dynamic. That plays out all around the region too in terms of iranian support to insurgence sees in yemen, in bahrain, in the Eastern Province of saudi arabia. And support to their allies in places like syria and lebanon. Thats the second dynamic. The third dynamic is this rise of islamic extremism which weve now seen for almost 20, 25, 30 years, right. What is that . That is a belief on the part of a large number of muslims that their religion is threatened by the modern world and modernization. And a belief by a smaller amount of muslims its actually the policy of the west and the United States to destroy islam and destroy their religion. And the belief by many of those who think that, that it is appropriate, necessary to respond to that with violence. And thats i think the fundamental definition of islamic extremism. Those are the three big dynamic in the region. They play out in different places. There are two places where all three of them play out. In syria and in yemen. Rose what kind of strategy do you think we need . Well, i think its going to be different for everyone, right . Lets take, lets take iran, for example. I think its very important that the United States push back on iranian misbehavior in the region. What does that look like . We know that the iranians ship arms, for example, to shia sect in yemen. Its the Group Fighting the yemeny government. Its a civil war in yemen. The iranians providing arms to those people. They put those arms on ships and they send them to yemen. I think its appropriate. I think it would be good policy for the United States to have the United States navy board those ships. And if theres weapons on them, turb turn them around and send them home. Send a message were not going to let them get away with misbehavior and send message to our allies to think we abandoned them because were not pushing on iranian his behavior. Thats an example what we need to do with the iranian piece. Rose with respect to iran theres also been a nuclear deal. According to windy sherman who was on the program this week. It was essentially they met the schedule and complied. Yes. Rose on the other hand theyre developing missiles that can deliver. Right, right. So, theres a lot of things charlie and weve talked a little bit about this before. Theres a lot of things the iranians do that are contrary to u. S. Interests. One is, they are really the only state left in the world that actually practices terrorism as a tool of state craft. Organization inside the government that practices terrorism around the world. Two thats obviously not in our interest. Two, they provide supports, International Terrorist groups. Hezbollah couldnt exist. Three, iran provided support to insurgencies in the region designed to overthrow the sunni arab rose thats what we talk about the iranian behavior not part of the nuclear deal at all. Exactly. Rose at the same time this administration has said and any other administration we are going to contest that behavior. But were not contesting it in my view. Rose youre going to stop ships. So, when i look at the Iran Nuclear Deal all by itself. When i actually read through it the first time i was amazed at what the iranians had given up. I mean shocked. The nuclear deal on its own is a very good deal. It sets them back 10 to 15 years on their Nuclear Weapons program. It pushes the breakout time from a couple months to well over a year and it make it much more difficult for them to cheat and develop a weapon in secret. So the nuclear deal all by itself is in my view a very good deal. The problem comes with the rest of iranian behavior. The difference between the way we treated the soviet union, mr. President likes to point to, are and the way we treat iran is yes. We cut arms agreement with the soviet union but at the same time we pushed back against their bad behavior everywhere in the world. Now missiles, you talked about missiles. Rose it could not be included. They thought it was threatened. Youre saying they didnt try. For what reason . If in fact they thought they could have restricted behavior within the nuclear deal, they would have tried to do it, wouldnt they . So, i dont know to what extent they pushed. I was gone already. To what extent they pushed to put other things under this deal. It is absolutely true, two thing are absolutely true. The vast majority of the sanctions that were placed in iran because of the nuclear deal and the p5 plus 1, the International Group that, the group of countries that came together to negotiate with the iranians it was to negotiate over the nuclear deal and not everything else. Thats why they stayed away from other things. The one area they did go into was missiles. Why . Because one of the reasons you care about Ballistic Missiles is their ability to carry Nuclear Weapon. So theres a link between the two. It was included. It was included in the 2010 Security Council resolution and that Resolution Says you cannot conduct any Ballistic Missile activity. So the two tests iranians did at the end of last year, right, were a violation of that years Security Council resolution. In the Nuclear Agreement with them, the Nuclear Agreement says that that particular Security Council resolution will be replaced by another one that will have an eight year restriction on missile activity, right. So now the iranians have violated both the current un Security Council resolution and they violated the spirit of the new agreement, that resolutions not in place yet but they violated the spirit of the new agreement. So the question is what do we do about it now. The right thing to do is to sanction them. The right thing to do is to send a very powerful message that were not going to let you get away with this, right. I think were heading in that direction. I think the administration is probably days away from sanctioning them. Rose i want to move along through these. First iran. Next is isis. Thats the top level. Right. Rose what do we do about isis. So the Iraqi Government just three weeks ago took ramadi back. Rose with the help of american air strikes. Help of american air strikes, advice from special american forces. This was to me, charlie, significant and it was significant for two reasons. One was what they took which was ramadi which they lost last may which was a real embarrassment to them. Its 60 miles from baghdad. Its the capital of Anbar Province which is the home of a vast majority of iraqi sunnis. Its on the main highway to syria and jordan. Its strategically important. So what was taken back was significant. But more importantly it was who took it back. So theres been a string of defeats in iraq for isis, to crete, beji, sinjar. Those were not taken by by the Iraqi Military they were taken back by the kurds and the shia militia yeah. The first time the Iraqi Services took back territory from isis. It was the who did the taking that was also significant. Now theres big steps ahead, right. I think the next objective will be fallujah. Smaller than ramadi because theyre much more supportive of isis. Rose very symbolic. Very symbolic to these guys. The real prize is muslims. The real prize is iraqs largest city. That is the iraqi headquarters for isis. That will be much harder. Its much larger. There are many more isis fighters there in the thousands as opposed to just a couple hundred in ramadi. I think what youre going to see on the iraq side is some military progress. I think theres going to be a lot less progress in the syria side. So i think the new president when they walk in the door is going to see an isis thats lost quite a bit of territory in iraq, still not defeated there yet but no Real Progress in syria without a diplomatic solution which does not look promising. Rose which brings at least to this conversation right now, this conflict between syria and saudi arabia. Does it affect that. Iran and saudi arabia. Rose i mean iran and saudi arabia. How would that unfold and what will be the issues facing the new president. Thats talk for a second about this industry shia cleric that created this issue. What exactly this person did is not clear. They spoke out publicly against the regime. They called for regime change. They had some pretty horrible things to say about some senior saudi royals but he never called for violent overthrow, just go away. He didnt say, didnt call for violence. But supported protests, right, supported shia protests. But whether he did anything more than that, i just dont know. I dont know what the specific facts are in this case. He was charged with sedition, right. More important than all of the facts surrounding him is that he was a symbol for both iran and saudi arabia. For the iranians, he was a symbol of saudi repression of the shias who live in saudi arabia. And for saudi arabia, he was a symbol of iranian metaling inside saudi arabia, iranian encouragement of the saudi shia to rise up and overthrow the saudi government. He was a symbol. And thats why, thats why the iranian public reacted the way it did when he was executed and thats what created this whole problem. Rose theres also this. It is said that the United States urged them not to do it. And they went ahead and did it. And by that they were sending a message to the United States. Because the saudis are not happy about the relationship. And you know a lot about this. I think they were sending three messages. First message was to the iranians, right. Were not going to let you metal in our internal affairs without there being cost, number one. Number two, is a message to their own people and to their shia population. About what you cannot get away with. And three, it was a message to the United States, absolutely. Rose what was the message to the United States . The gulf arab states, saudi arabia in particular, deeply frustrated with the United States over a number of issues. Rose what were those issues, the red line in syria to the nuclear deal. Three mubarak. Those are the issues. Those are the issues, exactly right. Lets take each of them in turn. So mubarak, its really hard to say how u. S. Policy could have been any different than what it was. We could not have saved mubarak if we wanted to and it would have been a strategic mistake to have tried, in my view. Two, the Iran Nuclear Deal. We just said its a pretty good deal. I think there are two things that are missing from a saudi perspective. One was we were conducting secret negotiations with the iranians and what he didnt tell the gulf arab states. They were upset about that. Rose what were the saudis. They seem to have a very strong relationship from Intelligent Community to Intelligent Community. There are you and so many others. John brennan as a deep saudi history. On the other hand the saudis represent an ally in the gulf. Thirdly there was energy and oil there was always there. An important ally more so now. Theres a deep distrust and a deep sense of people on this show that the u. S. Needs to rethink its relationship with saudi arabia. Youve heard that. Yes, and the saudis here this, right. Rose help us understand why this relationship is so important. Its a great question. Rose and why dont we have more influence with them. Thats a great question. So, you got it right initially, right, which is that the bed rock of saudis importance to the United States was oil, right. That is now less important, absolutely. But whats now more important is their willingness to stand up to irans desire to reestablish, essentially reestablish the persian empire. Saudi arabia is willing to stand up to that. That makes them a strategic ally of us in my mind. Rose on the other hand, i tell you and i know youve heard this too. Ive had people come to this table you respect and say five, ten years from now well have a better relationship with iran than saudi arabia. I dont believe that. Rose you understand the argument they make. Yes. They believe that iran is going to fundamentally change in the next ten years. Rose because of the young reform group will eventually have their way. Because the population is very young. The population is very pro United States. The hardliners are increasingly being, increasing competition to the hardliners. I dont buy that argument. And the reason i dont buy the argument charlie, is because when i look at the next generation of iranian leadership. What i see is that leadership coming from the iran iraq war generation. If you go back to the iran iraq war, okay. And the guys who were 2025 years old. Theyre now in their early 60s, late 50s, early 60s, right. These guys are the, thats the most revolutionary generation. Rose by the iran iraq war and they know we supported iraq. And they hate us for it. That is that generation. Rose ahmadinejad. Yes. He was young as president. Rose and mayor of tehran. And he fought in the iran iraq war. His hostility towards the United States of america was shaped by that war. Thats the next generation thats going to run this place. Absolutely theres a competition right. I wouldnt call them moderates, i would call them less hard line. Rose what if we had influence with the saudis. We didnt have influence in terms of what they did with this cleric. Weve had little influence in terms of them. Ill tell one area we have influence. People believe and im asking. People believe that they have become much more antiisil and antialqaeda because of pressure from us. Because they were supporting through private foundations and exploiting at its extreme forms and they have done less of tcat now. But there still is, it seems to many, an inability to influence them in the nature of their own place. So in the area i know about, right, they were, as you hinted at earlier, very strong counterterrorism partners with the United States of america, right. And doing things that were in our interests that werent necessarily directly in our own interest, helping us out. I think also its important to look, people talk about reform in iran. You also have to look at reform in saudi arabia. Both the crown prince and the kings son and deputy crown prince. Rose and defense minister. And defense minister are both reform minded. They both believe, they both believe that saudi arabia has to change in fundamental ways. Rose let me just ask. How do you know that . Because ive talked to these guys and because i read what they say. Rose and they say their vision of saudi arabia is what . Their vision rose as against iran i thirty the divisions threefold. This is me talking not them. This is me putting it together. One is a significant economic reform thats being led by the defense minister but also head of the economic committee. Rose hes young too. Very young. 30 years old. Very aggressive economic reform plan. Designed to wean away their dependence on oil and build a broader based economy that is in our interests and in our business interests, our commercial interests, right. And then theres political reform, right, that they know, they know that they have to give more rights to women. They know they have to give their population a greater voice. Its going to come in their own style in their own terms. I dont think we want democracy tomorrow in saudi arabia. The extremists have quite a bit of popularity. The political reform will come in its own way and own time. And then third, to act as the bullwark in the region. Rose heres the question about iran. Weve always known there was a strong reform there and a lot supports the former president before ahmadinejad. But many people believe that it represents a majority opinion. Do you believe in a free election, a free election in which anybody, legitimate candidate could run and the state didnt try to control who could run as they have in the past. Would it win or not. Or do you believe the Republican Guard would prevent them and the ayatollah would never let them happen. Ahmadinejads first election free and fair. The iranian public elected him. Second time around, he was helped. He was helped by the iranian government. I dont think he would have made it. That was 2009. This was their own arab spring, right. Protesters in the streets, people being shot. Rose critical moment for the regime. And then rouhani, free and fair election. It depends on the state of their economy and who the candidates are. Like here, right. It is absolutely true, it is absolutely true that the population is pro u. S. In a cultural sense. And liking the people. But it is absolutely also true that across a wide spectrum of the iranian population, there is deep frustration with u. S. Policy in the region. And against iran. And support rose rouhani expresses that absolutely. Rose let me go beyond what you mentioned. Prior to isis priority is iran. And then theres can i say one more thing about whats likely to change with isis over the next year. Is that the affiliates around the world are going to be more important. I think libya is going to become a real story over the next 12 months and the next president is likely to face a significant isis group with territory in libya. Theres an isis group there already. Just took one small city, and for the first time foreign fighters are flying to libya to join this isis group. I think thats going to be another part of the story you see over the next year is the isis affiliates becoming bigger part of the isis story than were seeing today. Rose russia. Has Vladimir Putin been successful in playing a weak hand and now being at the table increasingly so. So i think thats a great question. Let me just back up for one second and then ill answer the question. Let me back up to what does he want, right . He wants, he wants two things really. He wants russia to be seen as a great power again. He wants it to be seen as an equal of the United States. His strong desire. And he wants to reestablish the russian empire which basically means he wants a day in the territories around him. He wants those things. What kind of guy is this . Hes a thug, hes a bully, he only understands relative power. He doesnt understand negotiations, hes willing to have short term costs for his long term objectives. And then you say, and hes obviously done that in ukraine and now hes done it in syria. And you say okay, how is he doing in terms of getting to his objectives. I think realistically charlie, hes losing all of this. Rose in the end. In the end. Rose because he does not have a dynamic economy and because hes gotten involved himself in things on the surface it looks like hes exerting a strong leadership, in the end its a very difficult place to have your will. Right. So just take for example, just take for example ukraine. The result of ukraine was sanctions that were put on him that really hurt his economy. And probably any hope of bringing together integrating the russian economy with the west any time for the next 1015 years, right. 8,000 russian soldiers, russians who are fighting in ukraine died. Hes kept that from his people but its going to leak out slowly. What syria is costing him is, you know, millions of dollars. He cant afford that. And so the loser at the end of the at the end of the day here is the russian economy and the russian middle class and his hope of having a power base for what hes trying to create. Rose north korea. Do you know they had a bomb from what you have heard. I would go with what the u. S. Is saying. It doesnt sound like that. It might have been a boosted figure weapons theyre call a hydrogen bomb. Rose whats the option of the United States. Obviously you saw south korea and the United States and japan rally. You also saw a failure of the chinese to come rushing to their defense. I dont think this test, this is a fourth test. There was a december in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2015. I dont think this changes the threat picture for innovator korea at all. They became a Nuclear Weapon state in 2006. This hasnt changed that. Rose with the help of pack tines. With the help of the pakistanis. I dont think, charlie the things that happened over the last ten years is the advancemented of their missile program. Which is a concern right because youve got a Nuclear Weapon and a missile. Maybe you can put the too together, right. Including a missile charlie called a cannon 08 which is in different configurations it can be a Medium Range Missile or an acbm capable of hitting the United States. It deployed the cannon 08. They never tested it but they deployed it. The threat of nor korea Nuclear Weapons missile delivered to the United States has been there for several years. Rose what do you tell the president when he assumes office. This doesnt change any of that. Rose what do you tell him about this threat. What you tell him is that there is really only one way to get your, theres two ways to put pressure on north korea. And you have to put pressure on them. There has to be a cost to them of doing this, right. Thats the only way they stop. That can come in two forms. The first form is very specific sanctions that are aimed at the leadership and aimed at the elite. The way that kim jungun and his father and grandfather support the elites that supported them. If you can squeeze that and take that away from them, take that money. The Bush Administration did this by sanctioning a bank, a small bank in asia. Rose kind of what we did to the iranians. Thats one thing we can do to squeeze them. In termed of generalized sanctions, the only way generalized sanctions work, the second thing you have to do is get the chinese to play ball. Because the chinese provide the bulk of what the North Koreans need to survive today. Heres the problem with the chinese. Theres a major change in chinese thinking about north korea. Chinas plierm objective on the korean pense law is instability. They dont want hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. Theyre looking for stability. Up until a couple years ago the chinese believed the United States was the greatest threat to instability in the peninsula. Now they believe its north korea and its behavior. So get the chinese to do something about that. Heres the problem. The chinese are afraid to use their leverage. Why are they afraid to use their leverage like pulling back on oil experts in north korea. They are afraid to cause what they want to avoid. We havent convinced them yet of taking steps to actually rein kim jonguns behavior. Rose we talked about isis, russia and north korea. We havent talked about china. Theyre going through deep issues right now and they are trying to change their economy. Right. Rose yet at the same time, theyre more aggressive than they have been, especially with respect to the islands. And theyre also building carriers which can make them a project forward military force. Right. So that last, in the last couple months, theyve announced theyre starting to build a second aircraft carrier. They did another antisatellite missile test. They Just Announced a complete reform of their military command structure to make it look much more like ours in terms of a joint chiefs. Being very aggressive on that front. Rose and they have economic power and money to spread around. Right. So charlie, you heard me say at the beginning that i thought that the next president would face two huge challenges. What to do about the middle east and what to do about china. We frame the middle east with the three dynamics you got to get your arms around. How you do that, thats what the next president s going to figure out. China, the way to frame china i think is to say look, this is a very very important bilateral relationship between beijing ad washington. Important for the region and the world. Theres a spectrum where our relationship with china could be and it ranges from one end thats cooperation, actually cooperating together to make the world a better place. And the other end of the spectrum is war. And its not clear where in that spectrum were going to fall. That is to be determined. Rose theres some effort of cooperation in terms of cooperating on the environment. Exactly. Exactly. And as i would frame that right for the next president , it would say, it would be this. It would be, there are two things that are pulling us together. China and the United States pulling us together, pulling us in the right direction and there are two things pulling us apart. The two things pulling us together are number one, we both have a huge stake in the success of the chinese economy, particularly reforming chinese economy. I know what they do in intellectual property, manipulating the exchange rate. Rose the currency theres a lot of things they need to do. But if they do them, we both have a huge interest in that success. Right. Were seeing that play out in the last couple days, right, between stock market falls there and stock market falls here. The second thing pulling us together is i do believe based on my conversations with my chinese counterparts, i do believe there are increasing places in the world where our National Security interests overlap. Rose heres the interesting thing too. So far in the Security Council, they have seen to more likely side with the russians than against, than with us. Partly because they have a great sense and have for a long time. We tonight want you medaling in our business and we dont go with you meddle. Thats right. I cant do it at this table but i can tell you four or five areas. I can mention one counterterrorism. They have their own islamic extremists problems. They have an interest in cooperating with us in syria, in pakistan, in places where the threat emanates from to them, okay. Thats Something Else pulling us together. Rose but when you say that, you also raises the question of yes. We have to come to terms with them on that. The two things pulling us apart charlie are, and this is the most important one. Is they are a rising power and we are a status quo power. And because theyre a rising power they want a greater say in the world around them and guess who has that say today. Rose we do. We do, right. How does that get resolved. Rose people say its not a zero sum game. Are you suggesting it is a zero sum game. In other words as they rise somebodys got to declean so thats going to be us. I think it is. Rose inherent possibility of the likelihood in the 21st century. Yes, without a doubt. I think these a deal to be made with them. Theres a strategic deal we made with them which is well give you greater room any station, well give you greater room to influence greater say if you play by the rules of the international community. Rose because a lot of the neighbors and friends of ours like vietnamese specifically a word about that. Absolutely. And right, in order to convince them that that strategic deals in their interest, we have to be strong. We have to be insanely strong. The other thing pulling us apart char charlie is we have large militaries and you have to plan. You have to equip your militaries for war against each other and you have to train for against each other and both sides see that and that just creates an inherent tension in the relationship. So a big job for the next president of the united st to figure out how to manage that relationship. Rose there is increasing contact between our military and their military. Ash carter, unless you tell me im wrong. No no no. I believe on the china question that the Obama Administration has set up the next president in about as good a way as you can set them up for that conversation that we need to have with them about what is our relationship going to be like going forward. Rose thank you for coming. Thank you. Its great to be here. Rose again the book is called the great book of our time. Mike morell, thanks for coming. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose we continue this evening with our coverage of sectarian tensions in the middle east, mass protests in place in iran today hover the execution of a prominent shia cleric. Earlier this week saudi arabia and other sunniled states down graded relations and tejon. Here is David Ignatius, a Foreign Affairs columnist for the Washington Post and im pleased to have him back on this program. You listened to the interview i just did with mike morell. And i know that you are enormously curious about some of the things we talked about and write about them. Central to the conversation today about Foreign Policy has to do with saudi arabia and iran. It has to do with sunnis and shia. It has to do with the future of iraq and syria. Tell me what you think about the question i raise with him about saudi arabia, the execution of this cleric, knowing it would produce problems and what the aftermath of all that is. I think charlie, the saudis because of their deep insecurity, their anxiety about iranian pressure, their anxiety about isis, maybe most of all, the anxiety that their super power friend and patron of the United States is less reliable, have been making some bad decisions. I think executing this very prominent shia cleric, something that they knew would be seen by shiites inside saudi arabia and indeed around the world as a direct assault was not a good decision. It was predictable that it provoked the kind of backlash. Its a sad decision to cut diplomatics relations with iran. There were other ways to show displeasure. Climbing up a tree like this taking this kind of step is how do you then climb back down. I think when we look at saudi arabia we need to understand that this is a very insecure vulnerable monarchy and theyre not wrong to have these anxieties. As mike morell said, iran is a regional bully. The saudis are frustrated by americans lack of action. We need to push back against iranian meddling in the region so the saudis are less anxious. If we should write a blank check for the saudis and the actions they take as they sometimes try to flail out against their enemies, i think thats a terrible mistake. Its gotten us in trouble for a generation. I dont think we should repeat that mistake again. Rose it was said by many they were sending a message to us. What message should we be sending to them . Well the message theyre sending to us is were going to take care of our own security because we dont really trust you and i think the message we need to send again as we have at president obamas Obama Meeting at camp david with gulf leaders and repeated messages we send to them privately is were there. We do have your back. Our commitments to your security in terms of military assistance, in term of forces in the region, in terms of our declared policy couldnt be clearer. President obama has said over and over again that among the things that the u. S. Would use military force for is to protect our allies in the gulf region. Saudis dont believe us anymore but again we need to keep saying it. Again as morell said, theres a relationship between saudi intelligence and u. S. Intel diswruns thats very deep. John brown the ci director was stationed there, he speaks good arabic, he was in touch with the saudi intelligence and other leadership. I think thats important. Another thing i noted in the last few weeks is that the internal tension and friction within the saudi u. S. Family which is getting to the point to worry a lot of people seem to calm down. The king himself i believe intervened to say to the crown prince, and his own son, the deputy crown prince basically cool it. That the two of you need to occupy this space in a way that preserves the royal families integrity and stability. In that sense they consolidated power within the royal family recently in a way thats helpful. Rose what was the conflict between the two of them . The conflict between these two really i think came from young the deputy crown prince, 30 years old, smart ambitious, somewhat impulsive, pushing very hard against the person who is the superior, for example, a key aide, was fired from the Saudi Administration in a way that seemed many saudis liked a direct shot at the crown prince by his deputy. Other ways in which he was seen as being under pressure. Again i think thats eased a little bit so hes personally asserted his prerogative as king and in terms of saudi stability thats probably a good thing. Rose is in fact the deputy crown prince reformer as Michael Morell suggested . He has big ideas about reform. He has commissioned from mckenzie, other western consultant groups. Very ambitious plans for modernization of the kingdom ive read through the detail of some of those plans. They say all the right things. They talk about privatization of business in saudi arabia. Just recently announced a plan to privatize the airports on the gulf in the east and the jetta in the west. Lands thats been held essentially without any compensation of the state by senior princes. Thats good reform. He talks about moving saudi arabia away from total dependence on oil. Its a better economy and better shape fiscally. Those are all good things. And there are worst things in the world that have a modernizing 30 year old who wants to have power in this kingdom that we campaigned for so long is so conservative. Thats not a terrible thing to have him around. The problem is that he has created anxiety within the royal family. This is a country thats really used to stability and so i think that led to some bumps and i think theyve been reduced recently. Rose let me ask you about iran then and come back to this conflict between iran and saudi arabia. Youve written about elections coming up. What might we expect . Iran on february 26th has two elections that matter in terms of the future political shape of that country. The first is the parliamentary elections, roughly 285 members who will be elected. And the expectation is if public sentiment is accurately reflected in this polling on february 26th, the moderate forces aligned with the president will gain strength. So you might have a situation in which the moderates are practicing ma advertises but controlling the parliament. That would move 9 the parliament more towards moderation. In terms of the long Term Government of iran in some ways a crucial body is something called the assembly of experts which picks the next Supreme Leader after the current Supreme Leader. That election similarly has a number of candidates running who support that view. The most interesting of them believe it or not is the grandson ayatollah khomeini. His grandson although running as a independent is seen as a significant supporter of the kinds of reforms, changes, openings that rouhani and his administers have supported. The fact hes in this race will make it tough for the hardliners 50 kick him out. If you go to his Facebook Page there are pictures of him with his grandfather. Its hard to attack the man who is the direct decentant of emam founder. Rose theres the case that people home, home that the Iran Nuclear Deal might lead to some kind of cooperation, some kind of confidence building and some kind of encouragement between iran and the west. You know charlie, ive become somewhat more pessimistic about the speed with which that will happen. I think these elections next month are important. I think cementing the power of rouhani and his allies is important. But the hardliners, the revolutionary guards are not going to go away. Weve had an incident in the last few months that is a direct shot against this idea that iran is going to open up to influence from american investors, iranian americans, the iranian diaspora. They arrested and jailed a person who was very close to the reform group in iran, i think as a direct shot against these people. Believe it or not charlie, you go to the economic forum, the primary accusation against this iranian was that hes a member of the World Economic form young Global Leaders program. Thats the dossier on him. Thats a sign hes a figure of the great satan. So its a sign that the hardliners really want to contain this process of opening a dialogue and i think for a while theyll probably be successful. They wont win that one in the long run. Rose let me close with this and talk about really the conflict in syria and the conflict in iraq with isis in terms of whether there will be any spillover from the saudi iranian conflict in the battle against isis. And secondly, will there be any consequences for the effort to somehow find a route to the u. N. Said a political transition. Its important to remember in this week in which weve had riots in tehran, a break in sawed iranian relations. A month ago, secretary of state kerry succeeded of getting them to sit at the same negotiating table in vienna and discuss a process of transition, political transition in syria that could eventually lead to a ceasefire and stabilization there and a more unified effort to destroyed isis and the alqaeda affiliate. That diplomacy which i think has been surprisingly successful is at risk. Thats really the biggest problem with this explosion this week. The saudis and iranians dont like each other and thats not going to go away any time soon. They do know that the syria war is ruining them the russians know that as well. Secretary kerry was using that and making some progress. Well have to s whether that has now been blown to pieces. If that happened, it would really be tragic. I do think, even if that diplomacy goes forward, theres going to be some new things happening in 2016 that are going to get the u. S. More deeply involved in the war against isis than weve been. I would look for Something Like a safe zone in southern syria which is an easier area for us to protect, next to jordan. The russian planes cant fly that far. I think that jordans king and the u. S. Is ready to make more of a commitment in southern syria to begin to surround the isis capitol in eastern syria. Not simply approach it from the north as were doing now but forces in the south backed by jordan maybe backed by saudi arabia. Thats what i see coming. I think we can even hear some talk of that in the next week. The kings coming to the United States so i keep my eye out for that. Rose is he coming here to brief a republican retreat. Well, as always is the case, hes going to see a bunch of different audiences. People we know for their favorite arab leader. I think the interesting point that you suggest here is throughout the arab world or the whole world, people are beginning to look to the next president. So yes you want to come to washington, come to the whitehouse and see president obama but you really have your eye on the person who is going to take office in 2017. My fear is that the world is going to go into stall. It will be like the end of a basketball game. Nothing will move because people wont want to do business with the Obama Administration. The world is in such a state of turmoil now that the idea that people just hold off and not take action for a year. I think that would be quite dangerous. Rose weve had a conversation about the opera called the new prince which will i think premier at the Dutch National opera in 2017. As unlikely as that sounds i mention it will premier in march of 2017. He was writing arias. Its an exciting project. Journalist is the last thing in the world i would imagine to be. Rose where did you find the talent to do this. Im not sure i found theuota. Mac valley always interested me. Brought his writing to life. Rose its a pleasure to have you back on program. Thank you, charlie. Rose David Ignatius from the Washington Post. Thanks for joining us. Well see you next time. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org every single bite needed to be tasted. Wow. Its like a great big hug. My parents put chili powder in my baby food. Everywhere all over the table. My stomach is g